The team was founded in Kansas City in 1894 as the Kansas City Blues of the Western League.[2] The team moved to Washington, D.C. in 1901 as one of the eight original teams of the American League, named the Washington Senators or Washington Nationals. Although the Washington team endured long bouts of mediocrity (immortalized in the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees),[3] they had a period of prolonged success in the 1920s and 1930s, led by Baseball Hall of Fame members Bucky Harris, Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Heinie Manush, Joe Cronin, and above all Walter Johnson.[4] Manager Clark Griffith joined the team in 1912 and became the team's owner in 1920.[5] The franchise remained under Griffith family ownership until 1984.[6]

In 1960, Major League Baseball granted the city of Minneapolis an expansion team. Washington owner Calvin Griffith, Clark's nephew and adopted son, requested that he be allowed to move his team to Minneapolis and instead give Washington the expansion team. Upon league approval, the team moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season, setting up shop in Metropolitan Stadium, while Washington fielded a brand new "Washington Senators" (which later became the Texas Rangers prior to the 1972 season).[7]

Team history

Washington Nationals/Senators: 1901–1960

Washington's Bucky Harris scores on his home run in the fourth inning of Game 7 of the 1924 World Series.

The Washington Senators spent the first decade of their existence finishing near the bottom of the American League standings. Their fortunes began to improve with the arrival of nineteen-year-old pitcher, Walter Johnson, in 1907. Johnson blossomed in 1911 with 25 victories, although the Senators still finished the season in seventh place.[16] In 1912, the Senators improved dramatically, as their pitching staff led the league in team earned run average and in strikeouts. Johnson won 33 games while teammate Bob Groom added another 24 wins to help the Senators finish the season in second place.[17] The Senators continued to perform respectably in 1913 with Johnson posting a career-high 35 victories, as the team once again finished in second place.[18] The Senators then fell into another period of decline for the next decade. After a string of mediocre seasons, a rejuvenated Johnson rebounded in 1924 to win 23 games with the help of his catcher, Muddy Ruel, as the Senators won the American League pennant for the first time in the history of the franchise.[19]

The Senators faced John McGraw's heavily favored New York Giants in the 1924 World Series.[20] The two teams traded wins back and forth until the series reached the seventh and deciding game. The Senators trailed the Giants 3 to 1 in the eighth inning of Game 7, when Bucky Harris hit a routine ground ball to third which hit a pebble and took a bad hop over Giants third baseman Freddie Lindstrom. Two runners scored on the play, tying the score at three.[21] An aging Walter Johnson then came in to pitch the ninth inning, and held the Giants scoreless into extra innings. In the bottom of the twelfth inning with Ruel at bat, he hit a high, foul ball directly over home plate.[22] The Giants' catcher, Hank Gowdy, dropped his protective mask to field the ball but, failing to toss the mask aside, stumbled over it and dropped the ball, thus giving Ruel another chance to bat.[22] On the next pitch, Ruel hit a double and, then proceeded to score the winning run when Earl McNeely hit a ground ball that took another bad hop over Lindstrom's head.[21][22] It would mark the only World Series triumph for the franchise during their sixty-year tenure in Washington.

After Griffith's death in 1955, his nephew and adopted son Calvin took over the team presidency. He sold Griffith Stadium to the city of Washington and leased it back, leading to speculation that the team was planning to move, as the Boston Braves, St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Athletics had all done in the early 1950s. By 1957, after an early flirtation with San Francisco (where the New York Giants would eventually move after that season ended), Griffith began courting Minneapolis-St. Paul, a prolonged process that resulted in his rejecting the Twin Cities' first offer[26] before agreeing to relocate. The American League opposed the move at first, but in 1960 a deal was reached: The Senators would move and would be replaced with an expansion Senators team for 1961. Thus, the old Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins.

Team nickname

The Washington franchise was known as both "Senators" and "Nationals" at various times, and sometimes at the same time. In 1905, the team changed its official name to the "Washington Nationals."[27] The name "Nationals" appeared on uniforms for only two seasons, and was then replaced with the "W" logo for the next 52 years. The media often shortened the nickname to "Nats." Many fans and newspapers (especially out-of-town papers) persisted in using the "Senators" nickname. Over time, "Nationals" faded as a nickname, and "Senators" became dominant. Baseball guides listed the club's nickname as "Nationals or Senators", acknowledging the dual-nickname situation.

The team name was officially changed to Washington Senators around the time of Clark Griffith's death. It was not until 1959 that the word "Senators" first appeared on team shirts. "Nats" continued to be used by space-saving headline writers, even for the 1961 expansion team, which was never officially known as "Nationals."

Minnesota Twins: 1961 to present

The name "Twins" was derived from the popular name of the region, the Twin Cities. The NBA's Minneapolis Lakers had re-located to Los Angeles in 1960 due to poor attendance which was believed to have been caused in part by the reluctance of fans in St. Paul to support the team.[28] Griffith was determined not to alienate fans in either city by naming the team after one city or the other, so his desire was to name the team the "Twin Cities Twins",[28] however MLB objected. Griffith therefore named the team the Minnesota Twins. However, the team was allowed to keep its original "TC" (for Twin Cities) insignia for its caps. The team's logo shows two men, one in a Minneapolis Millers uniform and one in a St. Paul Saints uniform, shaking hands across the Mississippi River. The "TC" remained on the Twins' caps until 1987, when they adopted their current uniforms. By this time, the team felt it was established enough to put an "M" on its cap without having St. Paul fans think it stood for Minneapolis. The "TC" logo was moved to a sleeve on the jerseys, and occasionally appeared as an alternate cap design.[29] Both the "TC" and "Minnie & Paul" logos remain the team's primary insignia. As of 2010, the "TC" logo has been reinstated on the cap as their logo.[30]

1970s

After winning the division again in 1970, the team entered an eight-year dry spell, finishing around the .500 mark. Killebrew departed after 1974. Owner Calvin Griffith faced financial difficulty with the start of free agency, costing the Twins the services of Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle, who left as free agents after the 1977 season, and Carew, who was traded after the 1978 season.[34] In 1975, Carew won his fourth consecutive AL batting title,[35] having already joined Ty Cobb as the only players to lead the major leagues in batting average for three consecutive seasons. In 1977, Carew batted .388, which was the highest in baseball since Boston'sTed Williams hit .406 in 1941; he won the 1977 AL MVP Award. He won another batting title in 1978, hitting .333.[35]

The World Series in 1991 is regarded by many as one of the classics of all time. In this Series, four games were won during the teams' final at-bat, and three of these were in extra innings. The Atlanta Braves won all three of their games in Atlanta, and the Twins won all four of their games in Minnesota. The sixth game was a legendary one for Puckett, who tripled in a run, made a sensational leaping catch against the wall, and finally in the 11th inning hit the game-winning home run. The seventh game was tied 0–0 after the regulation nine innings, and marked only the second time that the seventh game of the World Series had ever gone into extra innings. The Twins won by scoring a run in the bottom of the 10th inning, and Morris had pitched a shutout for all ten innings against the Braves.[42] The seventh game of the 1991 World Series is widely regarded as one of the greatest games in the history of professional baseball.[43][44][45]

After a winning season in 1992 but falling short of Oakland in the division, the Twins fell into a years-long stretch of mediocrity, posting a losing record each year for the next eight years: 71–91 in 1993, 50–63 in 1994, 56–88 in 1995, 78–84 in 1996, 68–94 in 1997, 70–92 in 1998, 63–97 in 1999 and 69–93 in 2000. From 1994 to 1997, a long sequence of retirements and injuries hurt the team badly, and Tom Kelly spent the remainder of his managerial career attempting to rebuild the Twins. In 1997, owner Carl Pohlad almost sold the Twins to North Carolina businessman Don Beaver, who would have moved the team to the Piedmont Triad area.[46]

2000s

The Twins dominated the Central Division in the first decade of the new century, winning the division in six of those ten years ('02, '03, '04, '06, '09 and '10), and nearly winning it in '08 as well. From 2001 to 2006, the Twins compiled the longest streak of consecutive winning seasons since moving to Minnesota.

2006

In 2006, the Twins won the division on the last day of the regular season (the only day all season they held sole possession of first place) but lost to the Oakland Athletics in the ALDS. Ozzie Guillén coined a nickname for this squad, calling the Twins "little piranhas".[49] The Twins players embraced the label, and in response, the Twins Front office started a "Piranha Night", with piranha finger puppets given out to the first 10,000 fans. Scoreboard operators sometimes played an animated sequence of piranhas munching under that caption in situations where the Twins were scoring runs playing "small ball", and the stadium vendors sold tee-shirts and hats advertising "The Little Piranhas".

2008

In 2008, the Twins finished the regular season tied with the White Sox on top of the AL Central, forcing a one-game playoff in Chicago to determine the division champion.[52] The Twins lost that game and missed the playoffs. The game location was determined by rule of a coin flip that was conducted in mid-September. This rule was changed for the start of the 2009 season, making the site for any tiebreaker game to be determined by the winner of the regular season head-to-head record between the teams involved.[53]

2010

In their inaugural season played at Target Field, the Twins finished the regular season with a record of 94 wins and 68 losses, clinching the AL Central Division title for the 6th time in 9 years under manager Ron Gardenhire. New regular players included rookie Danny Valencia at third base, designated hitter Jim Thome,[59] closer Matt Capps,[60] infielder J. J. Hardy,[61] and infielder Orlando Hudson.[62] In relief pitching roles were late additions Brian Fuentes and Randy Flores. On July 7, the team suffered a major blow when Justin Morneau sustained a concussion, which knocked him out for the rest of the season. In the divisional series, the Twins lost to the Yankees in a three game sweep for the second consecutive year.[63] Following the season, Ron Gardenhire received AL Manager of the Year honors after finishing as a runner up in several prior years.[64]

2011

After repeating as AL Central champions in 2010, the Twins entered 2011 with no players on the disabled list, and the team seemed poised for another strong season. During the off-season, the team signed Japanese shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka to fill a hole in the middle infield, re-signed Jim Thome, who was in pursuit of career home run number 600, and also re-signed Carl Pavano. However, the season was largely derailed by an extensive list of injuries. Nishioka's broken leg in a collision at second base[65] led the way and was followed by DL stints from Kevin Slowey, Joe Mauer, Jason Repko, Thome, Delmon Young (two stints on the DL), José Mijares, Glen Perkins, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Jason Kubel, Denard Span (two stints), Justin Morneau, Scott Baker, and Alexi Casilla. The team's low point was arguably on May 1 when the team started 7 players who were batting below .235 in a game against Kansas City.[66] From that day forward, the Twins made a strong push to get as close as fives games back of the division lead by the All-Star break. However, the team struggled down the stretch and fell back out of contention. The team failed to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and experienced their first losing season in four years. Despite an AL-worst 63-99 record, the team drew over three million fans for the second consecutive year.[67]

2012–2014

The team started the 2012 season with a league worst 10-24 record.[72] In late May and early June, the team embarked on a hot streak, winning ten out of thirteen games.[73][74] By mid July, the team found themselves only 10 games out of the division lead.[75] On July 16, the Twins defeated the Baltimore Orioles 19-7, the most runs scored in the short history of Target Field.[76][77] By the end of August, the Twins were more than 20 games below .500, and last in the American League.[78] On August 29, it was announced that the Twins would host the 2014 All-Star Game.[79] In 2013, the Twins finished in 4th place in the AL Central, with a record of 66-96.[80] In 2014

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